11ty/eleventy
Eleventy
Eleventy is a JavaScript-based static site generator designed to transform templates, data files, and markdown into optimized HTML. It functions as a versatile template rendering engine and content management framework, allowing developers to aggregate data from diverse sources—including local files, databases, and external APIs—to populate structured web content.
The project is distinguished by its template-engine-agnostic pipeline, which decouples the build process from specific rendering languages. This allows users to integrate multiple template formats, such as Liquid, Nunjucks, Handlebars, or EJS, within a single project. Its architecture relies on a data cascade that merges global settings, directory-specific configurations, and front matter into a unified context, providing a flexible foundation for complex site structures.
Beyond core generation, the system includes a robust set of automation tools for managing the build lifecycle, including incremental builds, file watching, and programmatic execution. It supports advanced content workflows through features like automated pagination, internationalization, and component-based asset bundling. The platform is highly extensible, enabling users to hook into the build process via plugins to perform custom transformations, image optimization, or syntax highlighting.
The project provides comprehensive documentation and supports configuration through modular files or TypeScript, facilitating consistent environments across different development setups.
Features
- Static Site Generators - Transforms templates, data files, and markdown into optimized HTML files for fast and performant web hosting.
- Static Site Generators - Transforms various template files and data sources into static HTML files to build performant websites.
- External Data Integrations - The static site generator retrieves information from external services during the build process to incorporate live content into static pages without requiring manual updates.
- Template Rendering Engines - Supports multiple templating languages to render dynamic content into static files with modular layouts.
- Template Engines - Decouples the build process from specific rendering languages by providing a standardized interface for diverse template compilers.
- Content Management Frameworks - Aggregates data from diverse sources like APIs, databases, and local files to populate structured web content.
- Data Cascade Resolvers - Aggregates variables from global files, directory configurations, and front matter into a unified context for template rendering.
- JavaScript Build Engines - Executes JavaScript logic to fetch remote data, process assets, and generate content during site builds.
- File-System Routing - Maps project directory structures directly to site URLs by default to determine page locations.
- Headless CMS Data Fetchers - Fetches and renders content from external databases or APIs during the build process.
- Markdown Transformation Pipelines - Transforms Markdown files into static HTML through a configurable engine supporting custom plugins.
- Headless CMS Connectors - Retrieves dynamic content from external interfaces and repositories to populate static site templates.
- Build Lifecycle Hooks - The static site generator allows users to trigger custom logic at specific points during the build lifecycle to modify data or perform side effects.
- Incremental Build Engines - Monitors source file changes to trigger selective re-processing of modified assets, significantly reducing total build time.
- Build Plugins - Allows external modules to hook into specific build events to inject custom data, transform content, or extend core functionality.
- Extensible Plugin Architectures - Integrates external tools and custom logic via a modular plugin architecture.
- Content Collection Managers - Groups templates into logical sets based on tags or configuration to enable automated content listing.
- CSS Asset Bundling - Collects and aggregates CSS and JavaScript snippets from individual components into optimized, page-specific bundles during the build process.
- Publishing Systems - Simple, template-based static site generator.
- Static Site Generators - Flexible static site generator for web projects.
- Static Site Deployment Tools - Triggers build processes automatically upon code commits and publishes static files to web servers.
- Build Context Injection - Exposes site-specific metadata and page properties to custom tags for dynamic content generation.
- MDX Processors - Transforms files containing a mix of Markdown and JSX components into static HTML for interactive content.
- Template - The static site generator creates multiple output files from a single template by iterating over provided data sets or paginated content collections.
- Bundle Optimizers - Collects and merges CSS and JavaScript snippets from components into optimized, page-specific bundles.
- Incremental Build Engines - The static site generator supports watch mode and incremental builds to improve developer productivity by avoiding unnecessary full project rebuilds.
- Template Engine Abstractions - Allows users to specify and configure multiple template engines for different file types.
- Component-Based Rendering Engines - Supports building modular and reusable UI components with server-side rendering and selective hydration.
- Localization Engines - Configures site structures to support multiple languages and locale-specific content delivery.
- Automated Navigation Generators - Builds hierarchical navigation structures and breadcrumbs based on site content organization.
- Development Preview Servers - Starts a development server that automatically refreshes the browser whenever template files are modified.
- Programmatic Build Executors - Allows users to run the site generation process from within custom scripts to integrate site building into automation workflows.
- Internationalization Support - Configures site structures to support multiple languages and locale-specific content delivery.
- Custom Template Integrations - Allows integration of arbitrary file extensions into the build process by defining custom compilation logic.
- Content Transformers - Intercepts template content during the build to perform custom transformations or conditional file exclusion.
- Static Asset Optimizers - Optimizes images, rewrites file paths, and manages cache busting for production deployment.
- Syndication Feed Generators - Creates RSS, Atom, or JSON feeds from site collections to allow user subscriptions.
- Handlebars Renderers - Processes Handlebars syntax files to generate static HTML by utilizing partials and custom helpers.
- Project Scaffolding - Provides pre-configured project templates and boilerplate code to accelerate site initialization.
- CI/CD and Pipeline Automation - Integrates site generation into CI/CD workflows to automate deployment and optimize asset delivery.
- Image Processing - Resizes, converts, and optimizes images at build time to improve performance and prevent layout shifts.
- Media Optimization Utilities - Automates image processing, lazy loading, and responsive asset serving to improve page load performance.
- Configuration Modularization - Supports organizing build settings into separate, modular configuration files for better maintainability.
- File System Abstractions - Maps project directory structures to output URLs while allowing programmatic access to content without requiring physical disk writes.
- EJS Renderers - Processes files containing embedded JavaScript logic to generate static HTML output.
- Nunjucks Renderers - Provides native support for Nunjucks templates to generate static HTML content.
- Liquid - Processes Liquid-syntax files into static HTML by applying standard includes, custom filters, and reusable shortcodes.
